February 2016 NPD: Far Cry, Fire Emblem, and Street Fighter fail to lift U.S. game spending

February had a lot of blockbuster game releases, but that wasn’t enough to match spending from last year.

Consumers spent $842.5 million on new physical gaming products at United States retailers during the four-week period from January 31 through February 27, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. That’s down 12 percent from $960.3 million year-over-year. That’s largely because of a tough comparison to February 2015 that included Nintendo debuting the New 3DS XL along with The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D. This year, February had no such hardware launch, and games like Street Fighter V couldn’t make up the difference.

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